Francis Poulenc
(1899-1963): Melodies
I drew all that I could from Éluard,
Apollinaire, Max Jacob, etc… I do not claim to have resolved the poetic
problems musically through intelligence (the voices of the heart and of
instinct are the most reliable).

-Francis Poulenc, Journal de mes
mélodies

The importance of Francis Poulenc's vocal
output within his work is well-known, as is his place in the history of the
French mélodie. The pieces he devoted to the human voice, whether single
songs or cycles, vary in genre as much as do the poets which inspired them,
from Pierre de Ronsard to Paul Éluard, via Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob or
Louise de Vilmorin. "Setting a poem to music must be an act of love, and
never a marriage of reason," declared the composer to Claude Rostand
during the famous radio interviews which took place between October 1953 and
April 1954. "Once I have chosen a poem, whose musical setting I do only
several months later, I examine it in all its aspects. If it is Apollinaire or
Éluard, I give great importance to the arrangement on the page, blank spaces,
margins. I recite the poem to myself often. I listen to it, looking out for
problems, I often underline the difficult bits of text in red. I note the
breathing points, trying to uncover the internal rhythm through one line, not
necessarily the first one. Then I try setting it to music, taking into account
the different densities of the piano accompaniment. When I run into some detail
of prosody, I don't get desperate. I sometimes wait for days, I try to forget
the word until I can see it as a new word."

The programme here gives an idea of the
musician's melodic art, from the Chonsons gaillardes composed in 1926 on
anonymous seventeenth century texts, to the Demier poème a poem by
Robert Desnos, set to music in 1956. Thirty creative years during which Poulenc
increased his poetic experience of which he was to make good use, particularly
in his lyrical works (Les Mamelles de Tirésias, Dialogues des Carmelites, La
Voix Humaine). He wrote in his Journal regarding Tel jour telle
nuit: "We'll never know just how much I owe to Éluard, how much I owe
to Bernac. (It is thanks to them that lyricism entered into my vocal
work)."

Indeed, while the poets played a
primordial rôle in developing the lyrical talent we know him to possess, the
composer was fortunate, throughout his career, to have his arrangements
entrusted to interpreters without equal, themselves attracted by the vocal
qualities of his writing. Jane Bathori, Claire Croiza and Suzanne Peignot were
the first to sing, love and defend his works. Pierre Bemac had a decisive
influence upon the composer, through his qualities as an interpreter as well as
the value of his technical and artistic advice. Though today it is part of
history, the famous duet that Poulenc made up with the baritone for more than
twenty years is still present in people's memories. From 1958, Denise Duval,
the incomparable interpreter of his lyrical works and a faithful friend, who in
turn worked with the composer for a group of recitals and from 1959 took around
the world his arrangement of La Voix Humaine (often with piano
accompaniment) within various melody programmes. Francis Poulenc died a few
days after their last recital, given in Maastricht, at the end of which he had
flowers sent to Denise Duval with the words. "My Denise, To you I owe my
final joy, Your poor Fr.".

The Chansons gaillardes were
composed in 1926 on anonymous seventeenth century texts, whose sauciness is
translated by the composer into almost naïve poetry. Introduced boldly by La
maîtresse volage, the cycle continues with Chanson à boire, a march
where the solo is virtually declaimed. Madrigal is a movement as brief
as it is lively, with a comical spirit. Though Invocation aux Parques is
indicated as "grave" to be sung "tenderly", the Couplets
bachiques, "very lively", contrast strongly with their very
rhythmic nature and full-throated coda. Poulenc wanted L 'Offrande to be
made into a piece of pure poetry, as the melodic line, rather than the text,
obviously demands. After Serenade's most poetic invocation, La belle
jeunesse confirms that we are dealing with "songs", as the
composer stressed to Claude Rostand.

In 1931 Poulenc went back to the Bestiaire's
poet for the anthology of Quatre poèmes de Guillaume Apollinaire. Half-way
between melody and street-song, these pieces move between a "sordid
Parisian atmosphere" (L 'anguille), amorous mockery (Carte-Postale),
biting irony (Avant le cinéma) and finally a "Kaleidoscope of
words" (1904).

The cycle Tel jour telle nuit was
written between 1936 and 1937 on poems by Paul Éluard. It was first performed
on 3rd February 1937 in the Salle Gaveau, by Pierre Bernac accompanied by
Poulenc. This is a cycle as Robert Schumann would understand it. This recording
provides a version established by Bernac and supported by the composer. The
cycle opens with a solemn movement on the piano, the singing evolving from an
almost recitativo style towards a lyrical flight which concludes the
melody. Une ruine coquille vide furnishes an atmosphere perhaps
conveying the poet's "midnight's silence" and continued into Une
herbe pauvre. Swift and short, Je n'ai envie que de t'aimer suggests
the ardour of amorous desire. Lastly, Nous avons fait la nuit recalls
the introduction's muffled atmosphere and concludes the cycle with a piano coda
which seems to want to prolong the poetry beyond the words.

Priez pour paix was
written in 1938 on a text by Charles d'Orleans. Francis Poulenc explains in his
Journal how he tried to give here an impression of fervour and above all
of humility which, for him, was "the finest quality of prayer."

Moved simply to his very depths by the
resonance, so human, of the Apollinaire poem - as he likewise states in his Journal,
Poulenc composed Bleuetin 1939.

Banalités was
written in October and November 1940 in Paris and Noizay on sparse poems by
Guillaume Apollinaire and use the title of a collection of seven poems
appearing in the review Lacerba of April 1914. It was first performed on
4 December 1940 in the Salle Gaveau by Bemac and Poulenc. Whereas the Chanson
d'Orkenise must be intoned "straight-forwardly, in the style of a
popular song", Hôtel is the poetic evocation of idleness in ..a
room in Mont- parnasse". soothed by smooth, langorous harmonies. Noted as
"very fast, in a single dash", Fagnes de Wallonie interrupts
the earlier atmosphere with a curious passage of speed. rushing to its
conclusion in a short coda on the piano. Dedicated to Paul Éluard, Voyage à
Paris takes a waltz rhythm, conveying a Parisian mood at once both popular
and spiritual. Sanglots, which completes the cycle, is definitely one of
the most moving pieces written by Poulenc. Swung to and fro’ by the
accompaniment's off-beat rhythms, this melody is charged progressively with a
more and more tense emotion through a particularly restrained modulation
technique.

The Chansons villageoises were
composed on poems by Maurice Fombeure between October and December 1942 and
first sung on 28th June 1943 by Roger Bourdin with Poulenc at the piano.
"I conceived them as a symphonic item in song for a strong Verdi baritone
(Iago)," says the composer, now writing them with orchestral
accompaniment. In fact, these melodies are especially rich in colour and tone
and bear witness to a search for strong harmonies. characteristics to be found
in their piano version. "Very gay and very fast", Chanson du clair
tamis joyfully opens this new cycle with rhythmic élan, mischevously
mingling diatonics and chromatics. Les gars qui vont à la fête, noted
"Wildly animated", renews the pace in a bantering mood. Sweetly
poetic, C’est le joli printemps is the only song in this cycle to be
calm and serene in nature. The effect produced in Le mendiant is
striking with its crescendo, its rhythmic development and its use of power.
"Prestissimo as possible". Chanson de la fille frivole is
light in its dynamics and the repetition of its refrain. The cycle ends with Le
retour du sergent, a ferocious. yet ironic, melody led baldly by its
refrain.

Written in 1943 on a clandestinely
published poem by Aragon, C portrays with intense contained emotion the
profound despondency of the tragic days of May 1940 and the Exodus.

The melody C’est ainsi que tu es, on
a poem by Louise de Vilmorin, a faithful, close friend of the composer, is
taken from Metamorphoses. Composed in 1943, it maintains a
conspiratorial duo between the piano's melodic line and the sung line, which
answer each other and are overlaid in widely deployed lyricism.

Finished in 1945, Montparnasse, on
a poem by Apollinaire, seems to allow Poulenc to re-immerse himself in one of
the magic places of his youth, as in La Dame de Monte Carlo some years
later. Here, we have a nostalgic evocation of Montparnasse, associated with the
memory of the Salle Huyghens and the "Lyre and palette" concerts, in
which the composer's earliest works were first heard. Montparnasse was
first performed in the Salle Gaveau on 27th April 1945 by Bernac and Poulenc,
during the first festival to be devoted entirely to the latter's melodies.

Rosemonde is
the only poem drawn from Apollinaire's Alcools to be set to music by
Poulenc, Composed in May 1954 and first performed on 2nd February 1955 at
Gaveau, for the celebration of the Poulenc-Bernac duo's twentieth anniversary,
this work betrays, in Pierre Bernac's terms, a "happy nostalgia", Dernier
poème was written in 1956 on a heart-rending text by Robert Desnos found
after the poet's death at Drancy, and in which he had rewritten an earlier
poem, J'ai tant rêvé de toi.

Translation: Wil Gowans

Michel Piquemal
Michel Piquemal' s teachers included
Denise Duval and Pierre Bernac for the French mélodie and Suzanne Anders
and Paul von Schilawski at the Salzburg Mozarteum for interpretation of the Lied.
In 1978 he founded the Piquemal Vocal Ensemble and in 1987 became musical
director of the Chœur Régional Vittoria d'Ile de France and the Chœur Régional
Provence Alpes Côte d' Azur. His tastes, like his talents, are diverse, and his
repertoire is drawn from all eras. His recordings include, as a baritone, music
by Liszt, Rossini, Berlioz, Lalo, Sauguet and, leading his various groups,
works by Rossini, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Schumann, Schubert, Cornelius,
Donizetti, Faure, Ropartz, Tomasi and Lendvay. In 1996 the Piquemal vocal
ensemble won in 1996 the Troisiemes Victoires de la Musique Classique for its
Naxos recordings devoted to the complete sacred works of Maurice Duruflé (Naxos
8.553196 & 8.553197). Since 1994 Michel Piquemal has given a course on the
interpretation of French melodies at the Académie Internationale d'Ete
de Nice. An Officer of Arts and Letters, Michel Piquemal received the Pro
Artibus prize in Hungary.

Christine Lajarrige
Christine Lajarrige enjoys a busy and
varied career as a chamber musician and recitalist. She collaborates frequently
with Michel Piquemal, both as his recital partner and as accompanist for the
Michel Piquemal Vocal Ensemble and the Chœur Régional Vittoria d'Ile de France
with whom she has performed Brahms' Requiem and Rossini's Petite
Messe Solennelle in the versions for two pianos. She has also worked with
many leading French musicians, including Jean-Jacques Kantorow, Jean-Claude
Casadesus, Marc Soustrot, Danielle Borst, Béatrice Uria-Monzon, Marie-Ange
Todorovitch, and Jean-Luc Viala. In 1995, together with Gérard Caussé and Alain
Marion, Christine Lajarrige took part in a series of Schubertiodes organised
by the Fondation France Télécom and in 1996 she was invited by Alain Marion to
give duo recitals in Taiwan.